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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23837101">So Speak To Me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gillyAnne/pseuds/gillyAnne'>gillyAnne</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The X-Files</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst_2020, Episode: s07e17 All Things, F/M, First Time, Self-Harm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 18:35:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,856</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23837101</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gillyAnne/pseuds/gillyAnne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder's struggling with revealing the truth of his past, written all over his body, to Scully when they finally make love. <br/>Set during all things. And I truly hope I did not mess that up.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fox Mulder &amp; Dana Scully, Fox Mulder/Dana Scully</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>61</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>X-Files Angst Fanfic Exchange (2020)</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>So Speak To Me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/starwalker42/gifts">starwalker42</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the 2020 X-files Angst Fanfic Exchange.<br/>Becca, thank you so much for challenging me with your prompt. <br/>My prompt was: "Scully sees Mulder's scars for the first time, preferably while they're being intimate- he's embarrased/ashamed but she gives him all the love he deserves."</p>
<p>Note: trigger warning for mentions of self-harm.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Part One.</p>
<p>Scully’s apartment, 11PM.</p>
<p>The room was dark as the moon watched over it, calmly observing its two occupants as the atmosphere within changed. The night had been good to them, harboring them in her arms, safely tucking them away on Dana Scully’s couch after possibly one beer, one touch, one look too many. It had been a beautiful moment, something that the Gods had been working on for ages, perfecting it, working out every detail. However something about it wasn’t meant to be. A dark cloud suddenly pulled in, weighing down on the two occupants of the apartment as Scully felt Mulder roughly shove her hand away from his partially unclothed chest.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, Dana.’ Fox Mulder pushed himself off the sofa, scrambled to the side and grabbed his coat. He turned back to Scully and a nauseous feeling ran through Dana’s stomach. Mulder’s eyes were big, fearful, unlike Scully had ever seen up close before outside the realm of imminent danger. It scared her and she was inexplicably frozen to the suddenly coarse, harsh fabric of her sofa. ‘What’s wrong?’ she managed, unable to form cohesive thoughts as long as Mulder wouldn’t sit down and talk to her.</p>
<p>The evening had been wonderful. Finally, inevitably, she’d ended up kissing the man she’d been yearning to taste for years and years – and it had been everything she could ever have dreamed. His lips were soft, that luscious bottom lip smooth and skilled beneath her skin, and his hands had soon asked permission to touch her. She’d looked at him, taken a long moment to decide if this was the path she was meant to take, before leaving the decision up to fate. And here she was, barely ten minutes later, being pushed away by the man she’d chosen to guide her life. He looked fearful, but also sad, and Scully vaguely recognized the look in his eyes but she couldn’t figure out where she’s seen it before. ‘Mulder…’ she queried, willing him to talk to her, but as she leaned forward to reach her hand out to him he stepped back and turned towards the door. ‘Please don’t leave,’ she called. ‘What’s wrong?’ He hadn’t answered her the first time, and it looked like he wasn’t going to answer now either. His usually kind brown eyes looked confused, and he seemed to have trouble looking her in the eye. Who was this person? What had she done to change him from the soft, pliant Mulder at whose mercy she’d been just a few minutes ago to the Mulder in front of her, clearly in some kind of turmoil with her or with himself?</p>
<p>‘I gotta, uh, go,’ he tried as he pointed towards the door. ‘I’ll… See you in the office.’</p>
<p>‘Mulder,’ Scully called to try and halt his feet that were moving swiftly towards her door.</p>
<p> Scully watched, frozen, nailed to the couch as Mulder rushed out. As soon as his body had left her premises she felt adrenaline kick into her veins, ice creep into her heart and tingles spread throughout her skull and into her legs and arms. She rushed after him, throwing her door against the wall as she ran into the hallway. ‘Mulder, come back,’ she called, but he’d disappeared around the corner. Sighing, she turned back into her apartment to find her phone. She called him once, twice, but he didn’t answer. Not knowing what to say or how to say it Dana decided against a voicemail, knowing she’d see him in the office tomorrow and promising herself she’d not let him get away with it then.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span class="u">The next morning.</span>
</p>
<p>Mulder had been uncharacteristically quiet all day. He’d greeted her, yes, but his eyes had turned away the second she’d tried to meet them. Dana Scully wasn’t one to get self-conscious, but today, she felt strange. What had she done to upset Mulder like this? Was it something she said, or something less within her control or ability to change? Did he regret kissing her? She had spent most of her night, both in her waking and sleeping moments, going over every second of their evening and kiss. Nothing had stood out to her, nothing so severe that Mulder would be repulsed like he had been. She knew on some level that it couldn’t be her, he’d made his intentions and desires more than clear on multiple occasions, albeit in his own somewhat immature ways. He wanted her. She wanted him, and she’d been close to having him – too close perhaps, and perhaps this was her life telling her that their timing wasn’t right. What if we’re pushing ourselves towards something that was never meant to be, she thought. Do I even believe in that crap?</p>
<p>Today, he was avoiding her. She’d asked him flat out and he’d said he wasn’t, but he had not come close to her even once and she missed his big stature in her personal space. Everything else seemed normal, they were working, everything was great, but something wasn’t. Scully just couldn’t put her finger on it.</p>
<p>Then, Mulder left to get a coffee and she needed to use his computer. Needing to find something she’d researched before she opened the browser history to find it.</p>
<p>She hadn’t expected to find anything except the usual browsings of Spooky Mulder. Instead, she found a few web pages that fell into place along with every piece of the puzzle that she realized had been subconsciously dropped in the past seven years of knowing Fox Mulder.  Looking at the time she noticed he’d been searching early this morning, when he’d made a sideways comment about her being late when she had, in fact, been right on time. He’d also apparently just been researching something on the matter and without a shadow of a doubt Scully knew that this was what he had been struggling to tell her yesterday.</p>
<p>Fox Mulder had been tormenting himself trying to keep the secret of his tendencies to hurt himself. She didn’t know the extent of it, she didn’t know in which ways it manifested itself in or on his body, but she knew enough on the subject matter to know that this was a long-hated, deeply rooted part of his past he’d never want her to find out. She didn’t know why he felt the need to google it. Statistics, most likely, her brain told her. He was gearing up to tell her, finding courage in numbers and facts instead of her trust and something inside of her stung but it also burned in a good way – He wasn’t doing idle research. If he was looking this up it meant he was getting ready to attempt to talk to her.</p>
<p>At that moment, while Scully was engrossed in her thoughts with her eyes glued to Mulder’s computer screen, Mulder walked back in with two coffees. He stopped dead, spilling the boiling hot coffee over his own hands. ‘Scully… God dammit,’ he cursed as he rushed to put the cups down. Scully looked up, startled and feeling caught even though she wasn’t snooping. She reached out to help him, bumped her hands into his and the coffee spilled all over the desk. Mulder let go, Scully hissed loudly, and as they both threw their hands in the air to escape from the sizzling pain of boiling hot water Scully found Mulder’s eyes. ‘Jesus, Scully,’ Mulder cursed again, turning around and breaking away from her for a second, driving an ice pick through Scully’s heart with the sole act of turning his back on her.</p>
<p>He turned back though, quickly, drying his hands on his pants as he reached for hers. ‘Are you okay?’ She let him take her hands into his, examine the damage with his fingers before releasing her again and stepping back. ‘What… What are you doing?’</p>
<p>‘Mulder,’ Scully said seriously. ‘I was looking for something I’d searched recently and I came across this. I wasn’t spying.’ Mulder hadn’t seen exactly what Scully had been reading, but her reply formed a pretty damn clear image in his brain. ‘You saw.’ Scully nodded. ‘I don’t know what it means,’ she admitted softly as she watched the concerned look in Mulder’s eyes invert itself and turn dark. ‘Nothing,’ he said, and she wouldn’t have known it was Mulder’s voice if it weren’t for his lips moving.</p>
<p>Before she knew it, he was turning around. The dark liquid on her desk reflected his white shirt getting overpowered by his black coat as he swung it off a chair, shoulders hunched and head tucked down. ‘It’s just research,’ he mumbled even though his body was halfway through the door. ‘I’m going out to chase a lead.’ Scully reached for the empty cups and inspected the damage to his desk as she tried to keep up with Mulder’s turbulent mind. ‘Please don’t leave again,’ she pleaded, her voice not as desperate as her heart.</p>
<p>‘I can’t stay, Dana,’ he whispered in a thick voice. ‘Take care of your hand. Lukewarm water should help.’</p>
<p>Scully inspected his face and then her hands. ‘I know,’ she mumbled back. ‘I’m a medical doctor. I really need you to stay.’</p>
<p>He shook his head, in conflict with himself, wanting nothing more than to stay but also feeling the intense need to leave so she wouldn’t get caught up in his storm.</p>
<p>Dana, of course, knew.</p>
<p>‘I want to know,’ she said softly as she approached him. ‘When you want to talk, I want to hear.’</p>
<p>Mulder looked at her and her halo overwhelmed him. The intensity of her gaze, deep and warm, tried to catch his soul and he equally hated and loved her for it. Please Dana, he tried to plead with his eyes, stay away. There is nothing but pain here and you have had to endure enough pain because of me. Nothing here will bring you happiness.</p>
<p>He said none of it, though. He just observed her for a long minute as she broke their gaze, tucked her chin and started to clean the spilled coffee with a tea towel that mysteriously hung off the coat hanger. ‘Not right now,’ he said to himself, and as Scully was engrossed in saving as many pieces of stained paper as possible he turned around and left, heart heavy, shoes made of lead, but his brain clear as to what he needed to do. Get away from her. Save her before you save yourself.</p>
<p>Scully knew he was leaving as soon as his feet started to move. She let him, knowing he needed the space, and she took an hour or so by herself in the office thinking about him. Fear enclosed around her heart when she thought of what he was doing to himself. Then she realized there had been countless times like these, and she remembered not to lose her faith in him – he was still here, with her, he wouldn’t just leave her like that. Still, she was deeply concerned and knew they had to talk so she decided to give up on their research and follow him to where she thought she’d find him. His home.</p>
<p>When he wasn’t there, she panicked a little. Then, without any rational explanation or proof she drove home to see if he was there. She found him on the steps of her building, waiting for her.</p>
<p>After a beer or two she finally dared to ask him to speak to her. He told her, carefully, that he had secrets he didn’t want to tell her because they would hurt her. ‘I can handle it,’ Scully said with such dignity and depth that Mulder couldn’t hear it for anything but the complete truth. ‘I know,’ he finally said as he shifted on the couch. Scully turned towards him and put down her beer, clasping her hands in her lap.</p>
<p>‘I’m…. Prone to self-harm,’ Mulder finally admitted and his voice broke so roughly that Dana’s heart shattered with it. ‘I’ve never said that out loud,’ he whispered and his face broke into somewhat of a pained smile as a weight didn’t exactly lift, but shifted nonetheless. ‘It’s okay,’ Dana said softly as she slowly opened her arms for him. ‘it doesn’t change anything.’ Mulder studied her, finding her open and accepting as he had thought she would be but still something inside of him had expected rejection. In the very least he’d expected himself to reject her, to push her away from the edge of the abyss that was his deepest feelings, but now that they were there he found he didn’t want to jump anymore himself. Her hand reaching for him saved him, pulled him back into shallow waters and even though he was nowhere near the shoreline yet it was calling for him and he felt like he could take on the swim. ‘It changes everything,’ he whispered back, but he leaned into her as well and as he did she closed the gap and took him in her arms. ‘It only changes that which should be changed,’ she concluded and he decided to accept that answer, for it had always been like that. There was no fighting this. He had always known she’d find out one way or another. He was just glad it happened now, this far into their partnership, when she had proven to him she loved him in one way or another time and time again. He couldn’t lose her. But looking at her now he wished two things in equal measures: He wished he’d never laid eyes upon her face, her beautifully open and intelligent face. And he wished that he’d kissed her ages ago. Years and years ago when things weren’t as complicated. When it was just a man examining a woman’s elegant curves. Back when they were Spooky Fox and Dana. But they hadn’t, and today, everything made sense. Their path was more complicated than two human’s physical connection. Their path was one of a lifetime, and one that would save not one, but both of them from themselves. And it was only beginning.</p>
<p>He tried to tell her the times he had felt so ashamed, so stupid for what he had allowed to happen to his sister that the only way out was through physical pain. He deserved it, he said, and she didn’t tell him no because there was no use – it was long in the past. She carefully asked him if he’d ever done it after she had gotten hurt, and she was relieved when he said no. But the things he did tell her, the untreated injuries he used to make sense of his self-proclaimed failures, they weighed on her with something she knew she was destined to carry with him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Part 2.</p>
<p>Then, Mulder left. To investigate crop circles. He was disappointed when Scully declined his offer to come with, but clearly not devastated at the option of going at it himself. But he called her, over and over, and even though it annoyed her something inside of her was glad – with the distance between them he felt safe enough to seek her out and she hoped that he would be hers again by the time he got back.</p>
<p>Things happened while he was away, things that changed her, and she found looking in a mirror and seeing her own past reflected opened up her mind to Mulder’s so much more. She knew very little of him from certain times in his life, she realized, as he did of her. He’d only shown her the tip of the undeniable ice berg and that tip had been sharp, slippery, something she would never have guessed but in hindsight made perfect sense. He blames himself for so much, and so deeply, and every single thing he has ever done to find out the truth about what happened to his sister could never be enough to ease his pain. To take away the blame he felt, still feels, so deep inside. The more Scully thought about it the more her brain got flooded with questions – does he still do it? Would he ever stop? Would he want her to help or would he find it petty of her, hate her for her pity and reject her before rejecting the mere notion of himself again and again? She didn’t know, she wanted to know, and she was convinced more and more as time went on that this was the path she was supposed to take because there was light there. Even though the darkest nights still had to be explored, they’d still have to find a way to get to the light and trust it to guide them, Scully knew that together they could do it. This was possibly the reason she was in his life, she thought. And he was in hers – she’d known she loved him deeply long before all of this had come along, and nothing could ever stop her from being with him. She saw her compass in the squeaky wheels of hospital beds, saw his face in the face of strangers on the street, found his reflection when she was looking for her own. It scared her sometimes how perfectly they opposed each other, how deeply he could get under her skin, so deeply in fact that he had reached her heart and embraced it with all his warmth. Now that the cold was creeping in from inside his soul she knew that he had already lit the fire that would melt his pains, for he was that fire – he enabled her to shine as she enabled him, and together there was very little that would hold them back. As long as he would just talk to her. Allow her in like she was ready to do with him. When she most needs him she finds him again, finds him as he is looking for her. Nothing happened with the crop circles and she tells him maybe sometimes nothing happens for a reason, and offers him tea.</p>
<p>That night she offers him a secret, a truth, and he accepts it and falls in love with her even more. She falls asleep on his couch, her compass having pointed her onto the only road she knew to be right. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, rose to leave and as he leaned in to softly kiss her cheek he felt her hand on his forearm. ‘Stay,’ she’d whispered, and he had. At first he’d sat next to her again, under her blanket, leaning into her and allowing her to absorb his body heat like he had hers. She’d craved more, the uncertainties of her life catching up with her as she tried to hang on to what was real, and he’d been her tether as she’d curled her body around him as she was still suspended in limbo between wakefulness and sleep.</p>
<p>His hand on her hip had roused her and she’d pushed herself up, straddling his hips with ease as her skirt rode up. She’d searched his eyes, long and deep, trying to reconcile her own truth with his and knowing there was a lot that still remained unsaid or undealt with. He gazed back, searching the depths of her soul to find nothing but acceptance and possibilities and it had been he who had finally leaned in to kiss her.</p>
<p>This time he hadn’t pulled away. In the safety of his own home he had wrapped his arms around her, tightly, before lifting her up off the couch and carrying her to his bed as he claimed her mouth with his. She had just told him he was her path, and he’d heard her, but as words felt too heavy he relied on his body to tell her that he knew she was right. He trusted her truth over his, always, even though sometimes his heart fought his brain and it took a while for him to catch up to his fate – she was always his right direction.</p>
<p>They undressed each other, she tried not to look for scars. Her fingertips traveled across a few, and he tensed more than once, but every time she traveled on in a steady pace, feeling him, pulling him in and he felt safe again. He pulled her top over her head and paused as she felt like she was freed, a deep exhale releasing her from the cuffs that had been binding her to the past 63 turbulent hours. Her breath blew her hair away, and it fell around her face like a lion’s mane, and Mulder couldn’t help but bury his face in the crook of her neck. He bit her there, softly, and found out that she liked it by her feral response. She pushed herself closer, fumbled with the zipper of her skirt and helped him push it off as she rolled down next to him. She pulled him close, wrapping arms and legs around his strong body as she tried to keep him here, safe, honest, open. He stayed close to her, kissing her neck, collarbones and down to her cleavage where he breathed in her essence – his sustenance, his oxygen, his life. She pushed herself up into him and raked her nails down his back, forgetting about anything and everything that could possibly stand in their way.</p>
<p>When she finally took him in her hand, hard and ready, something akin to insecurity shot though him. He pulled back to look into her deep blue eyes and in them he found the path he was supposed to take. ‘How do you…’ he started, but she read the question in his eyes before he’d asked it and with it she knew the answer he needed. She didn’t speak, just allowed him to see the tears of love that formed in her eyes before kissing him and turning onto her stomach. ‘Like this,’ she whispered back, and he bit back his own tears because somehow, she knew.</p>
<p>He wasn’t strong enough to look her in the eye and make love to her yet. The pain was too real, her love and dedication shone too brightly and burned too deep for him to fully expose himself to just yet. But he needed her, and she needed him, and even though he feared her fire would scald him if he got too close he knew she would melt away his fears if he allowed her. He kissed her neck, her shoulders, every single star dusted across her skin he licked and loved and as she pushed her ass into his hips he knew she wanted this as much as he did. His fingers curled around her hips and softly touched her, found her pleasure center and held her close as he loved her with his lips and his hands. She whimpered and clutched his pillow as she came, and the proud smile was wiped form his face as she finally turned towards him and whispered ‘Please, Mulder. I want you inside of me.’</p>
<p>As they made love he buried his face in the warmth of her body. He nibbled and licked everywhere he could, listening to her, feeling her body move against his as she shifted her hips slightly and changed his angle. He held back, hanging on to her life line and listening to the pull of her body as his compass until finally he felt her tense beneath him. She reached back, pulled his face down next to hers and angled her lips into his, kissing him as deeply as she could as she pulled his hair between her fingers. ‘Oh my God,’ she whimpered into his mouth as her orgasm tore through them, melting her body into his and branding his soul with her fire. He followed her, releasing all of his desire deeply into her and hoping, praying to her God and whoever had the grace to listen that this wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t supposed to happen to him, he thought, but as he watched the sheen of sweat turn into goosebumps of pleasure across her back he couldn’t feel a single molecule out of place. ‘Dana,’ he whispered into the crook of her neck, and he just caught the hint of a smile that crossed the corner of her parted lips before she turned her head away.</p>
<p>He feared he might crush her with his weight so he pulled her into the curve of his body, but she resisted and a shiver ran through him. His mind expected her to leave as a draft of cold air slipped between their sheets, but she didn’t, and she turned around instead and  pushed herself up to lie at eye-level with him. There was no escaping her, but she allowed him time, remaining quiet and contemplative and he wondered if she was truly human or an alien goddess sent down to study on him. The depth of her stare wrapped itself around him and even though he’d expected his body to flee the only pull he felt was towards her, further into her, for the only road ahead was the one she wanted to walk with him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Part 3.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Scully asked as he covered her naked body further with his blanket. He looked at her, studied her intensely before coming to lie down next to her, his head propped up on one elbow. Looking down at her he was lost in her eyes and he wondered for a second, yes, why? There was nothing else she didn’t know. But something inside of him knew the answer. Had known it all along, but was afraid of telling her. But Dana blinked slowly, her soul as naked as her body next to him and everything made sense to him – she was ready to know. ‘Because I’d much rather hurt myself than ever hurt you,’ he said. ‘You are the one thing that is right about all of this.’ Dana’s bottom lip quivered and he feared she might cry. Then, she pushed herself up next to him and asked the question he feared the most. ‘Can I see?’</p>
<p>‘Yeah,’ Mulder breathed. He didn’t move, but kept looking at her, and she realized with a blaze of fire through her soul that he was allowing her to look, really look. ‘Some of them are almost gone,’ he said as if to explain something to her.</p>
<p>Scully watched him as she very gently pushed at his shoulder to roll onto his back. Vulnerability shot across his gaze and she smiled, her lips parted, one of those open smiles that held him captured in an alternate reality when their current one was too turbulent to safeguard them. He remained there, lost in her eyes until she broke eye contact and shifted her gaze to his naked chest. She let her hands travel down his cheek to his shoulder, where she felt a rough patch of skin. ‘Fell out of a tree,’ he mumbled. 'The fence was too high to climb.’ ‘How old were you?’ Scully asked. ‘Too old,’ he just said, and she realized this wasn’t just a childhood scar – this was one of them. One of the marks on his body that showed he would never care for himself the way he cared for those he loved.</p>
<p>As Scully’s fingers lightly crossed his skin and mapped every inch of his physicality she encountered more than she’d hoped. Battle scars, all of them, some familiar to her and some not. A few slices on his upper arm that she hadn’t noticed before, very faint, but definitely there in the slight wrinkle of his skin. He breathed in sharply as her fingers discovered them. Scully dropped her lips to his pectoral, distracting him but he remained strong. 'I'm good,’ he assured her, and she knew he hated his vulnerability as much as she hated hers with anyone but him. She wished she could take it away, but he was giving this to her and she knew she should take it for the gift it was, so she did. Kissing his chest she felt his arm come around her, clutch her hair and hold her to him, and she buried her lips close to his ear as she whispered to him. ‘I’m sorry.’</p>
<p>He turned his head and kissed her, not with the intention to distract her but to hold her close, make sure she didn’t pull away, even though that was the last thing on her mind. His other hand found hers, clasped their fingers together and then slowly moved them to his upper leg. There, she found something that felt like the rough marble floors of the bathroom in his apartment. ‘Mulder,’ she whimpered, because she knew what it was.</p>
<p>‘It doesn’t hurt when you touch it,’ he said, and of course the scar wouldn’t hurt because it was old – but the wound was still fresh, untreated, and the tremble in his deep timbre betrayed his lie. ‘I know,’ she murmured back, lightly passing her fingers over the burn mark across the side of his thigh as she let her hand wander up to his hip. She clutched it, pulled herself up to cover his chest with her body and pulled her knee up to protect him from his demons. ‘I’ve never shown anyone, not like this,’ he said as he released her hair and brushed it back down where he’d messed up her bob. She leaned into his hand and turned her face to kiss his palm before he let it wander back to the mattress next to him. ‘You don’t have to be afraid,’ she whispered and he bit his bottom lip to keep the tears in his heart from spilling over. ‘I don’t want you to feel sorry for me,’ he said. She pushed her head up to look into his eyes and saw his courage shine through in the gathering wetness along the lines of his dark pools of kindness. She took a moment to read everything that he was showing her – his past, the pain, everything he had tried to hide from her but was no longer interested in keeping to himself. She felt the weight of his heart reach out to hers and she reached out to grasp it firmly to never let it go again. ‘Just let it go,’ she asked him gently, and the smile that followed finally pushed his tears across the edge of reality. ‘Dana,’ he whimpered. ‘I love you.’</p>
<p>She heard the words, registered them and knew their meaning but somehow they sounded alien to her. She looked at him, fearful he might misinterpret her silence, but he didn’t – a smile formed around his lips as his chest expanded beneath her in a breath of life. Her heart sparkled inside her chest, beat loudly and formed the new rhythm of their life as she found herself nodding as tears started to form in her eyes as well. ‘You are everything to me,’ she admitted finally. ‘Endless forks in the road lead me exactly where I needed to go.’ Her fingers took up their own path, a path of discovery as she traveled the road of his past all across his mind and body. He told her small, one-sentence stories of how he’d gotten some scars, told her the truth about his deepest fears and desires and she took it all, gathered it up and locked it away in a safe that would henceforth be known as ‘things he told me because he loves me.’</p>
<p>When finally they grew tired, physically and mentally exhausted because of their journeys, she pulled him closer than he could go and covered his body with hers. He held her close, locking his arms behind her back and tucking every inch of her body away in the safety of his blanket.</p>
<p>‘It’s okay,’ Scully whispered softly into Mulders chest.</p>
<p>‘It is,’ Mulder mumbled back, his lips quivering but ever-present in the safety of her fiery hair. There’s more than one kind of way to burn one self, he thought. Dana Scully’s fire was as addictive as any drug, but the adrenaline he felt now was not something to fear. He loved her, and by some strange, alien sorcery she had admitted to feeling the same. And she’d shown him, for she’d already known he wouldn’t believe the mere sounds of her words.</p>
<p>The next morning, as she looked at herself in the mirror and zipped up her skirt she thought about what had happened between them. They had connected on a deeper level, beyond the physical, and it had felt spiritual and magical and truly like something that could only be theirs. They both had histories, lives they’d lived with people and experiences they’d rather erase from their past but the truth was that none of this would have happened if it weren’t for their separate lives. Every experience, every belief no matter how small had sent them on a path and even though it might have led them astray for a bit, in the end it had brought them to Mulder’s basement office. Nothing about this had been predictable, and nothing had been easy and Scully didn’t expect that to change. She looked at Mulder’s body, wrapped in a blanket, completely relaxed and content and she smiled to herself. Not everything is unpredictable, she thought.</p>
<p>And as her heart warmed for Mulder and for the possibilities for their future she saw his body move slightly, his eyes fluttering behind their lids before they opened in a hazy stare. His gentle face remained relaxed, happy, and a smile spread across it as he realized she was looking at him. He didn’t cover up, he didn’t turn away, and it pulled her back to the bed like a magnet to its other pole. Complete opposites, she thought. Complete together. Mulder blinked the remainder of his sleep away and reached up to kiss her softly, catching her lips between his as she sat and leaned down next to him. ‘I’m going home to change,’ she whispered, and he raised his eyebrows and nodded. ‘See you later?’ His puppy eyes pleaded with her and she cupped his cheek with her warm hand. ‘Yeah,’ she just said, allowing the word to roll off her tongue slowly but intently. His lips pecked hers one last time and he let himself fall back into the pillow.</p>
<p>There were a thousand words that they wanted and needed to say to each other, but silence encompassed them as Scully stood up and left his apartment. Some of those words would be mumbled over the phone. Some of them would be scattered in kisses across the other’s body later that day, and others would remain unsaid for later days – but somehow, by some mysterious way, every word would find its time and even though their paths might be anything but perfect, the bumps in the road would be what brought them the most love.</p>
<p>The end.</p>
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